Orkney and Shetland Folk 872-1350 — Themes and Context

Population Layers and Settlement Geography

Johnston distinguishes three early populations: Picts, Irish papas and Columban missionaries, and Norse settlers. He argues that the Norse first arrived as adventurers, not as colonists with families, which would have led to intermarriage with the aboriginal Picts. The paper uses toponymy to support this: Shetland, less fully colonised, preserved more Keltic island-names, while Orkney retained older Norse dialect forms. Johnston also notes that the Norse chose the easiest landing-places, while Kelts occupied inland, inaccessible areas—citing the districts of Hara and Stennes, rich in pre-Norse remains, and the inhospitable coast of Ireland. This geographic reasoning is paired with anthropological evidence for a persistent small, dark race in both island groups, representing the aboriginal population, later prisoners of raids, and later settlers from Scotland.

Saga Evidence and Personal Conflict

The paper draws heavily on Orkneyinga Saga for individual case studies. One extended example is Sveinn Ásleifarson, described as 'the most masterful man in the West' among those without higher rank. Johnston recounts Sveinn's expedition against Holdboði, where he claimed a chief's share of the spoil, leading to a dispute with Þorbjörn klerkr. The saga dialogue is preserved: Þorbjörn complained to Earl Rögnvaldr that Sveinn was 'robbing them of their shares,' and the earl agreed that Sveinn was 'an unfair man.' The episode illustrates the tension between personal ambition and communal norms, and Johnston uses it to gloss Old Norse legal terms such as skilit við (divorce declaration) and grið-níðingr (truce breaker).

Legal and Social Vocabulary

Throughout the paper, Johnston pauses to explain specific Old Norse terms that reveal social structures. For example, he notes that Sveinn's claim to a höfðingja-hlutr (chief's share) was contested by other ship-captains who wanted jafnir hlutir (equal shares). The term újafnaðarmaðr (unfair man) recurs as a label for Sveinn, and Johnston connects it to the legal formula for divorce in the Gulathinglaw. He also glosses forspár (prophetic), skygnastr (sharpest-sighted), and hugboð (foreboding), showing how the saga characterizes Sveinn through a cluster of perceptual and moral qualities. This lexical attention gives the paper a texture that is part ethnography, part legal history.

Movement Between Scenes: From General Claim to Specific Episode

The paper's structure is marked by abrupt shifts in scale. A broad statement about Pictish survival in Shetland is followed immediately by a detailed account of a feud. Johnston does not always signal these transitions, which can make the argument feel discontinuous. For instance, after discussing the distribution of stone circles and brochs, he turns to Sveinn's genealogy and marriage alliances. The effect is that the reader must hold two kinds of information simultaneously: the long-term demographic patterns and the short-term, often violent, interactions of named individuals. This movement between the general and the particular is the paper's primary method, and it reflects the nature of the sources—sagas that preserve personal detail within a framework of territorial and political change.

Readers should expect a work that is more a collection of evidence than a finished argument. Johnston's method is to present data—place-names, saga excerpts, legal references—and let them accumulate. The paper is best approached as a companion to the Orkneyinga Saga and the Orkney and Shetland Records, rather than as a standalone narrative. Pay attention to the footnoted abbreviations: they signal which source is being used at each point, and they reveal how much of the paper is built from a single saga.

There’s a moment in Orkney and Shetland Folk where the trace of a Pictish name survives under Norse noise, and I felt oddly tender toward those unnamed voices. It put me in mind of another quiet reading—The Counts of Gruyère — A Closer Reading—and how those Alpine archives hold their own buried accents. History is just people forgetting loudly, together.